Ukrainian oligarch bought oil depot in Russian Crimea
The Crimean authorities sold the Feodosia oil depot at auction for more than 650 million rubles.
This was reported by Kommersant, specifying that the winner of the auction was JSC Firma Gunas, established in February of this year, which several sources of the publication associate with the interests of the Ukrainian oligarch Sergei Kurchenko.
At the same time, the government of Crimea, the publication notes, names Valentin Dorosh, the head of the Kursk municipal unitary enterprise Ritual Services, as the owner. He told the publication that he “does not know who Sergei Kurchenko is.” According to him, the Feodosia oil depot is his first asset in the fuel and energy complex, although he has been working in Crimea since 2015. When asked what other businesses he owns in Crimea, Dorosh replied that this is a “trade secret.” He also did not rule out that the asset would be used for export, including to Middle Eastern countries.
“We are ready to cooperate with everyone for the benefit of Russia and for the benefit of our small land,” Dorosh said.
He claims that the asset was purchased with own and borrowed funds.
At the same time, the head of Infoline-Analytics, Mikhail Burmistrov, says that there is no obvious economic sense in the purchase, other than organizing the export of petroleum products to countries to which supplies are not limited by sanctions. The expert believes that in the case of Kurchenko, the acquisition may be interesting for the development of the trading business.
“The Feodosia oil depot belonged to Chernomorneftegaz and can store 250 thousand tons of fuel. In the early 2000s, it was actively used by Russian oil workers for export, but due to the expansion of terminals in the south of Russia, its importance decreased, and after Crimea became part of the Russian Federation, it was reduced only to storing fuel for the peninsula. But this will no longer be necessary with the commissioning of the railway part of the Kerch Bridge (planned for the end of the year). In 2018, fuel supplies to the oil depot amounted to only 75 thousand tons, and it was unprofitable,” the publication indicates in its certificate.
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